I don't know about you, but I tend to slip into a trance easily. This makes it really hard to produce chilled out ambient tracks because within just 10 or 20 minutes into it, the dreamland beckons and I find myself waking up to one of my synths playing the sound/pattern I've been working on repeatedly. I can't keep my damn eyes open! lol Does anybody else get hypnotized by music production like this? :banalama:

I must be weird...I almost always have a coffee or energy drink nearby or ready when I need it, but sometimes even if I just drank the whole thing....the eyelids get heavy and I never quite actually fall asleep, I just realize that I've been uber zoned out into this one thing - to the point where its like waking up, or coming out of trance. Maybe I've been drinking too much coffee lately, but its just no cuttin it! Also I work graveyard so im awake at strange hours...it makes for good music but not wakefulness!

Hmmm maybe thats the point....perhaps I should prolong the trance, keep working even if I keep nodding off and use the "in between" to fuel my music.....

Aphex Twin was famed for working under sleep deprivation, maybe there is something in it but also it is is not so healthy I guess. Maybe you need to try and adjust the time you work to a period where you are a bit more alert, like 2-3 hours before going to work at night ?

Starvation also works, as does thirst. In fact, anything that makes you feel awful works. In case you do not believe me, there were large art-booms after WW1 and WW2. Most artists have made their best pieces after personal trauma, or issues in their personal life.

In short: The more your life sucks the better you are as an artist. Go-go self-sabotage.

Amphetamines - Kind of a focused, partly psychotic way of sleep deprivation. Although you'll notice, that when you listen to your work from a Speed Session the next time sober that it won't sound as totally magic as it used to You'll come up with useful stuff nonetheless.

I've produced most of my Psytrance tunes that way...

And I've done an 18 Track Post-Industrial album while beeing in deep depression.

Many outstanding records were made this ways.

Such methods might be creativity triggering, but today I prefer to be sober and just happy the way I usually am.